LA Progressive: August 30 to September 5, 2009

Dick & Sharon’s Excellent Town Hall Adventure. For this corner of the world, with people who worked hard to elect Barack Obama, whose lives have already been profoundly changed by his election—just look at their faces—and who desperately want him to succeed, Obama needs to deliver on his promises to fix America’s broken healthcare system. -Dick Price

Fixed? Big Pharma, Big Oil, Big Milk. All special interest patrons of America’s Big Money bordello. What are good progressives to do? Either we get lobotomies (not that recession-lashed activists can afford them) or we fix the way the country finances politics. -Wendy Block

The Fix. To start fixing America, we must give elections back to voters. They need easy access to accurate information so they can evaluate all office seekers and issues fairly and independently. -Wendy Block

An Older Generation Needs to Move Over. We mustn’t forget it was a 26-year-old Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King who led the Montgomery Bus Boycott, a 20-year old Clara Lemlich who ignited some of the first marches for women’s rights in the US, an 18-year old Sieh King King who led a rally in San Francisco for equal rights for women. -John Delloro

Half Measures and Lukewarm “Reform” Won’t Save the Middle Class. The 30-year class war the rich launched against the working people in this country (and reached its apogee during the George W. Bush years), has left the middle class reeling and wounded. Only bold federal action that puts something concrete in the palms of middle-class Americans can begin to turn these dire social conditions around. -Joseph Palermo

What Obama Must Demand from Congress on Health Care. In order to get anything meaningful through this session of Congress, then, the President will have to give Congressional Democrats far more leadership and more cover. Doing so is harder now than before the recess, when he was still basking in the afterglow of a honeymoon and 60% favorabilities. -Robert Reich

Second Chance for Michael Vick and Other Ex-Felons. But there are thousands, no, millions, of everyday people who have served their time and paid their debt to society, yet they can’t get a minimum wage job flipping burgers. They need a second chance just to survive. -David A. Love

David Swanson’s Daybreak Is a Chart-Topping Inspiration. Daybreak is a revelation. It’s clarity and ease of understanding should be mandatory elements for all books of importance. It’s not obtuse or relegated to the multisyllabic intellectual. It’s a book of deep insight with every citizen in mind. Hence it is a public service. -Linda Milazzo

Thunder Over West 44th Street. But when you’re two fiercely independent, highly emotional people every day is a journey through a dense jungle, a shot into space, a dive to the deepest parts of the ocean, a race without a finish. Nothing is easy in a collusion of spirits. -Al Martinez

University California System Funding: Less Can’t Masquerade as More. UC’s future cannot be left to administrators who don’t understand that disinvesting in post-secondary education is disinvesting in California’s future. If we work together, there may yet be a chance to save the crown jewel of California from the pawnshop. -Mark LeVine

American Retirees Move To Mexico For Health Care. Many citizens of immigrant-sending countries have better access to health care at home than they would in the US, but that also doesn’t mean that they will flood the borders if the US health care system significantly improves. -Andrea Christina Nill

Prisons: Two Opposing Views. Suppose, hypothetically, you had to be in the same room for a couple of hours with a politician who can’t use the word “liberal” without combining it with character-assassination-style insults or a guy who stole a pair of socks worth $2.50. With whom would you feel safer? -Ron Wolff

My Wonderful “Socialist” Life. I’ve paid slightly higher taxes for and benefitted from life- and sight-saving treatment in my 12-years abroad. They each tackle the issue very differently AND… everyone is covered. -Denis Campbell

Grassroots News from Congo: Midwives Transform Trash Into Hope. The midwives need the means to accomplish their noble goal of saving women through direct intervention, HIV/AIDS counseling, and nutrition. This is truly a grassroots effort with a humble beginning that literally transforms grass and roots into life-supporting energy. -Georgianne Nienaber

Right Wing Smears Wellstone for Ted Kennedy’s Death. Conservatives are entitled to their political heroes, and if they have core principles should celebrate their leaders’ deaths the way he or she would have wanted them to do. Just don’t attack us for remembering our heroes – depriving us of our chance to grieve. -Paul Hogarth

Fallacies in U.S. Oil Policy. Instead of coddling oil-producing tyrants like Moammar Gadhafi and the Saud family, the United States and other industrial countries should let the market work. We should not pay a premium for oil by sacrificing our principles or pursuing unnecessary, costly and counterproductive military activities. -Ivan Eland

Bush Tortured. It seems almost trivial to accuse someone who launched an illegal war that has killed over a million people of torture. But if we are going to prosecute the lowest ranked torturers, it makes sense to look up the chain of command. -David Swanson

IMAGE courtesy of APROSAF midwives

He Saw the Promised Land. Rather than enshrine him in a giant marble bust to sit alongside Henry Clay’s, as some have suggested, this is their time to follow in the footsteps Everett Dirksen trod in 1964 and yield to an idea whose time has come, and to build a far greater monument to the legacy of their fallen friend. It’s what Ted would want. -Mark Bowen

Rise of Mercenary Armies Menace World, Help White House Thwart Peace Movement. It was also definitely not uncommon to see American troops high-fiving Iraqi teenagers, holding the arm of an elderly woman to help her cross a street, or helping someone out of a difficult situation…This was not the case with mercenaries. They knew they were viewed as evil thugs, and they wanted to keep it that way. -Sherwood Ross

DISCLAIMER: The opinions expressed here are those of the individual contributor(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the LA Progressive, its publisher, editor or any of its other contributors.

LGBT Rights

Irene Monroe: Long before June officially became Gay Pride Month, and October “Coming Out Month” for the LGBTQ community, Halloween was unofficially our yearly celebrated “holiday,” dating as far back at the 1970s when it was a massive annual street party in San Francisco’s Castro district.

The Middle East

Richard Greeman: Anti-government demonstrations spread across Morocco after social media spread the story of Mousine Fikri, a fishmonger crushed to death inside a garbage truck as he tried to block the destruction of a truckload of his fish confiscated by police.